Blind and Green

Hello,

I'm a member of most major hotel programs and have signed up for all of their credit cards. However, there are still cities and towns we travel to where the chains are not represented.

What are the best signup bonuses that would allow for hotel stays in those towns? I'm thinking of mainly those cards with travel portals where those hotels could be booked (Citi ThankYou, Amex MR, or Flexpoints) or those cards that give statement credits for travel (Barclay Arrival+, Capital One Venture, or BofA Premium).

I have had each of the above cards (including a few Amex MR cards) and too many recent accounts to apply for any of the Chase UR cards.

Is there anything out there that I haven't thought of?

Thank you.

sdsearch

It's not clear to what degree you'd be paying for these hotels vs using points.

The CIti TYP Premier earns 3x points on "the widest definition of travel", which includes all hotels.

I hated Flexperks. I has their weird caps for redemption, and they used (I don't know if they still do) Travelocity which didn't show a lot of indie hotels (that, say, booking.com does). I was trying to use my FlexPerks points on indie hotels, and I had to "waste" them on a chain hotel, because none of the indie hotels that I was interested were bookable through Travelocity and thus through FlexPerks.

And that's a potential danger with booking through any points program. Whatever booking engine they use is likely to show most chain hotels, but whether the show obscure mom & pop hotels in rural Whereverstan, that's much more iffy.

So if you're going to pay cash for these indie hotels, it's easy, use a card that earns at least 3x on such hotels. But if you're going to redeem, first you have to make sure that they let you redeem for any hotel.

But then also make sure it's better than a 2% cashback card. Venture is no better. Venture is simply a 2% cash back card where your cash back is limited to travel redemptions. (Don't believe their marketing hype which tries to make it look it's something special for travel. If you do the math, it's simply something that's limited to travel.) But Venture provides no better value than a true 2% cash back card (and it has an annual fee, while some true 2% cash back cards have no annual fee).

The thing is, I was always find cheap-enough indie hotels that I'm paying for them, not redeeming for them . So other than failed FlexPerks attempt (plus a successful Venture redemption back when they did their famous "status match" promo which gave 110,000 "miles" as their signup bonus), I've not tried redeeming for indie hotels.

I'm saving my ThankYou points to transfer to airlines, so I earn them fast on indie hotels or chain hotels where I don't have a specific credit card, and redeem them by transferring them 1:1 to an airline. Though at the this point I'm just accumulating them (mostly on hotel stays), I haven't decided where to transfer yet, I may not do that for a couple years more.

yugi

Is it wider than CSR?
Regarding the topic: Venture has 10% off hotels.com until January 2020. There is a Priceline card, which basically gives you 8% discount over already cheap Priceline NYOP or express deal prices + portal cashback, which in case of Venture is not possible to get, but it's possible to get hotels.com 1 free night after 10.

Blind and Green

Thank you for the thorough response.

At this stage of life, I really don't have a use for airline miles other than giving them to family. While I realize the return isn't nearly as good as if I were transferring to airlines, I've gotten in the habit of redeeming transferable reward points for hotels.

Between credit card signup bonuses and work travel, I'm flush with points in most of the hotel programs. I've got enough for the family trips I've planned through the end of the year, except for stops in some of the more rural areas, thus my question above.

Point taken on both the difficulty of using Flexperks and the fact that it will likely be easier/cheaper just to pay for the hotels where there are no chain affiliates. Paying will likely be the way I go when we head to the Great Sand Dunes National Park or other more rural NPS sites.

Thank you again.

Blind and Green

I went w/ the Citi Premier 50k signup bonus for two reasons:

1. You get 1.25 cents for each point when booking hotels through their travel portal.
2. I had 5k odd Thank You points on the spouse's card that I could combine prior to cancelling the card.